Open - An Grammar Errer

And the words slide into the slots ordained by syntax, and glitter as with atmospheric dust with those impurities which we call meaning.
-Enderby Outside, by Anthony Burgess.

Nalla breathed in, and out again. Her brain, the culci and gyri of her cerebrum, at least when she was reading, found a place of calmness. The warring entities inside of her conscious set aside their conflicts, like arguing children, to sit together at a common table for dining. They feasted their focuses upon the pages, devouring details like hollow stomached hounds.

From word to word, her eyes would glide, like the feet of dancers across a familiar studio. It was how she had learned to speak English. A simple practice. 'And from that place, he went. Nothing was behind him. Nothing remained but empty space.' Onto the next, her gaze flickered, but the subtle smile on her face, the peace, was not there. Something had gone awry. Her pupils stuttered, as though they were speaking a word they could not pronounce, they turned back to the previous sentence.

'Nothing remained but empty space.' She bit her lip. Something was wrong. 'Nothing remained but empty space.' She read it again, teeth grit, the muscles of her masseter clenching. 'Nothing remained but empty space.' What a mess. It was filthy, an unorganized shamble! A misguided mistake! Unforgivable! Her heart beat hastened, as a finger came down onto the page, fingernail scratching the paper. She could-- would-- had to fix it. No, it was incorrect-- impure. It was not right-- not true-- a lie. The peace in her brain began to break apart, a common point of focus fading away.

Leave it be, just keep reading. Sweat dripped from her forehead, the page crinkling. Why are we reading anyways? Don't we have something to be doing? A rapid three blinks. You're stuck.

The book was thrown behind her, soaring through the air like a phoenix, enveloped in flame and embers. Nalla, who was previously seated, now sauntered at a swift place away from the object, as it impacted the earth below, burning to ash. Muttering, she ventured further through the crystalline forest, not knowing whether she was headed to the deeper, or shallow end of the territory.

 

"Is that all? Would you like another? They are free today! Hahahaha! Ya know what?! They're free everyday! Why did I make people pay for these wonderful treats anyway? What a moron! Hahahaha!"

A large happy man pushed the smoothie to her. It was not a skittles smoothie and that was exactly how she wanted it. Wendel took the straw into her mouth and enjoyed the sourness.

It was good.

She looked over at the jukebox, a real antique these days but something that Bob's True Vanilla always had. She made a moments thought and it turned on a song, it was... really uplifting. It was too much. So it changed to something more melancholy.

It was good.

Would Raina like this one? Speaking of Raina, here she came now. Running through the door and taking her seat at the counter with Wendel. It was the perfect day for enjoying time together and talking about their goal. Of course Raina would just want to have a sweets eating contest, Gee whiz if she wasn't her best friend...

"Heya bestest friend! Let's get started. I'll win this time for sure!"

"Hehehe... will you? Maybe I'll let you Raina-chan."

It was good.

"ALRIGHT! Here it goes Wendy!"

....Sigh.

Magia waved a hand and Raina vanished. The Jukebox stopped playing. The entire shop was gone.

A pink haired girl with heterochromia eyes and a white and black attire stood alone in the crystal lands of Zalra. Even with all her magic, she couldn't lie about that one thing to make herself happy when it came to Raina. A trickle of blood came down her Eldritch eye. Wiping it away she focused and kept it from continuing. That was a ability she took quite some time to learn.

"My name isn't Wendy. Just let me be me. "

There was still some ways to go before she could convince Raina of that.

The smell of burning carried on the wind and made the girl quickly turn towards it. Was it Megan? She did have fire and ice spells after all. Heading in the general direction Wendel stopped when a woman she never met before came into view. The lady looked really bothered by something. What else was new though? Life was not very nice. Natural life anyway.

"Excuse me. This place isn't good to just wander around in.'

She raised her glove which had some crystal trying to form on it. Which shattered when Wendel flexed her fingers.

"*Giggle*, see? For some people it barely does anything but for others it can be really fast. Unless you want that?"

@Nalla

 

The last time she had ventured through these woods was quite a while prior. Once, there had been strange contraptions here, collecting rocks and jewels of value. This was when she was still... Eleanor. In an attempt to battle one of these beings for it's value, she had nearly lost her life. She sighed at this memory. If only she had logged off. If only she had seen the value in the truer reality of the two. This... This was virtual.

Nalla paused in her forced march, a final foot landing upon the ground in transit, before she heard the voice of one nearby. She turned to face this stranger. An entity with rather... Classy clothing, and pink hair. A painful reminder flashed as she remembered the image of the detective. A ribbon, a velvet coat, and a cap. How long had it been since she shared that suit with the cat? How long had it... Calm down.

"I-I didn't know the crystal spread..." She was suddenly worried, her heart pumping a fresh vat of cold blood through her veins. She had been seated reading for quite a while, perhaps being so still, she had nearly lost her life in this place. "I don't really know this place that well, I'm sorry."

Why apologize? It was the second time she had foolishly lead herself into this deathtrap of a forest. It was a mystical place, but not the most forgiving, apparently. Don't apologize.

Sweeping her pack off of her shoulders, and placing it upon the ground in front of her, she attempted to look at her back to make sure that there was none of these strange crystalline things working at petrifying her. Unfortunately, she couldn't get a good view because, well, it was her own back she was trying to examine.

"W-what is it? A parasite that does it? Or just the forest itself?" She had skipped introductions, now fearing for her own life, having seen how the rock grew upon the other's glove. Introductions? A voice reminded her. "I-I'm Nalla, by the way." Nalla? Heh.

@Das Ein Magia

 

"Huh..really? Gee whiz lady you won't last long here if you don't know that much❤."

Wendel stared at the young woman for a while. Was she really alright? It wasn't that she felt pity for the woman but more along the lines of curiosity and if the woman was really upset, Wendel would offer her a quick solution if she wanted it. Although, she was more than likely a player considering her not being aware of this places' infection. Wendel had to remind herself that some players were either really new or just spent most of their time in the 'main group' that was based in Astorea. Not everyone hung out in places like Norfova and Crystallized Zalra regularly.

"Hmmm."

She really didn't know? For that matter Wendel was not 100% sure herself what caused it. Vermillion never spoke of the place and her talk with Megan did not come to any conclusion about this place. She was still figuring out who or what she was let alone this place. Still, it would be pretty neat to...

"It's a curse. Hehehe, or... more like a representation of the grief of the world we are in. Things are being frozen because of all the suffering and no one doing anything to really end it. So.."

She gestured around at the crystals.

"It's going to sleep. It's trying to put everything else to sleep that comes here too."

That could have been the truth for all Wendel knew but it was as good a explanation as any. It suited her own message and goal anyway, which was good enough.

"Nalla? *Giggle* Nalla-san then! I'm..."

Stepping on the ground with a single step forward and raising a hand to her right eye with V shaped fingers (two fingers paired together rather than the peace sign). A wave of shadow spread over her, encasing her in a sphere like a throbbing black egg. Red lines spread over it and the egg shattered revealing Wendel in her combat attire. A ring of dark purple circling her feet.

"Das Ein Magia. Isn't that a very anime style name? It means The One Mage. Hehehe, there are other ways to translate it too. My best friend likes it."

Wendel was still rather obsessed about anything that was unique to herself and not Wendy. Her own name, her own title. Talking about them made her feel like a separate entity. Which was her preference. Regardless of whether she still technically was after the same things.

"I'm a hero. A ideal hero that exists to make everyone happy, that includes you? And gosh. you don't look very happy. I can feel grief coming off of you. I can feel things like that. It's a little quirky thing I picked up *snicker*."

Her hand rose to her mouth in thought.

"You were burning something? Was it a monster? ...If you have a problem I can help."

Even though she said she would help, there was nearly zero presence of sympathy in the way she said it. The coldness of the offer made it quite odd if nothing else. It was part of her desire to make people happy but it didn't mean she did it very... ethically.

@Nalla

 

Once upon a time, the detective that she lived within-- the one that lived before-- often made simple mistakes. These things ranged anywhere from purchasing the wrong kind of equipment, to walking straight into a nest of bandits. When considering the culmination of her previous, separate instances and their associated consequences, walking into a crystalline forest and nearly being petrified did not seem that bad! At least there was the hint of optimism, a silver that existed in the gray smog haze that had been introduced to her brain since the lock down.

"A curse..." The idea intrigued her in a dreadful fashion. She wanted to investigate. She desired greatly to pursue the mystries of the world. A segment of her conscious, a piece within her mind, begged, starved, lived for it. Her heart palpated for this entity, the detective, the lost one. For all the secrets she set her magnifying glass to, it seemed she could no longer find herself, but a breeze in the wind. The cat was gone. Investigation mode did not exist. Dark circles had grown beneath her eyes. Nalla was cursed.

"I suppose that is an... Anime-style name?" Introductions came, and she was weakly amused by the jubilant comments displayed by the stranger who was now named. As shadow enveloped the other female, the pyromancer took a brief, cautious step back. Her mind clumsily rampaged through the pages of a mental 'worst case scenario' booklet. Run-- The darkness-- A mystery-- Something from the woods-- Explode, burn-- Devoured-- Hallucination-- Escape--

Thankfully, it was simply a sort of... Exciting entrance ritual. With a nervous laugh, the exhausted visage of the flamestress ran stressed fingers through the back of her head, somewhat embarrassed by the sudden panic that had overtaken her a moment before. She was relieved. Her company was still safe and alive. "N-nice to meet you, @Das Ein Magia." She made her best attempt at pronouncing the name correctly.

"Yeah, I-I'm..." Quit. Nalla moved her hand up to her own face with the instinctual haste of a defense mechanism, violently pinching between her eyes as a voice interrupted her train of thought. "I'm a hero too. I mean, I try to be." She brought her hand down, her digits no longer clenching, making eye contact with the pink haired, rather strange individual. To strive for an ideal is noble. She nodded. To strive is to accept failure. We do not accept fail. She pursed her lips, breathing in. You've failed already. She sighed.

"Oh the burning, that was just a book..." She had spoken so swiftly without thinking, she did not realize how silly what she was saying might have sounded. "I-I mean, a dangerous book. A bad book!" She emphasized, hoping that in some way it could remedy the mess of an idea that she had initially presented in explanation. "A book that no one should read. Awful." She repeated, effectively attempting to protect her own dignity.

"So no... No monster." The one before her was surprisingly short, with a seemingly childlike body. Those details, when brought to light alongside the seemingly optimistic and joyful perspective, it would not have been a surprise to Nalla if the person behind the avatar was truly a young person. The thought frightened her, knowing that perhaps a young child, one who did not know better, could be eventually condemned to the same misbegotten fate as herself... She shuddered at the idea.

"Y-you referenced anime. Perhaps you're an otaku?" She asked, referencing the real world. "Are you from Japan?" She silently hoped for a specific response that she probably would not be getting.